For the moment it is because they've ripped up the central square, about 6.5 acres of land, to make a park in the middle of town, and that picture was taken before they started putting in the fountains, the performance stage and pergola, and the veterans memorial. Amazing what an angle can do. What you can't see is that a well-developed old neighborhood occupies the land sloping sharply downhill from city hall. You can't see the houses on the mountain behind it due to the thickness of the trees either. What struck me about that angle was that it made it look lonely, sitting in the middle of nowhere when it's anything but.

The Asheville City Building, its official name, is certainly not in the big leagues of the Salt Lake City, Philadelphia, Buffalo, and San Francisco city halls, but it's a marvelous example of art deco architecture all the same.

__________________"Asheville air affects me like champagne; it goes to my head. I'm apt to do things for which I will be sorry in the grim dawn of New York." -- William G. Raoul, 1898"After 30 years here, all I know is Asheville is a place where old souls and terrible angels walk among us..." -- Dale Neal, 2015